


Bellicose

by bleedingyellow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-26 06:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleedingyellow/pseuds/bleedingyellow
Summary: They know now that some things are worth dying for.





	1. Chapter 1

He could taste her lipstick on the filter of his cigarette. She didn’t smoke; that was plain by her coughing attack. He wondered what had driven her to ask for a drag. Even he had to acknowledge the smell wasn’t appealing, the flavour wasn’t the best; he’d admit the sex appeal was there though, to a degree.   
She was short. Saying she was shorter than he would not mean much, him being so tall but she was shorter than most, adorably so. She had attention-grabbing wild hair she loosely controlled with flips and flicks which was hypnotic and intriguing. Now as she keeled over in a coughing fit; it was both her arse and why the hell would she ask a stranger for a drag on his cigarette?  
“You all right, love?” he asked once the coughing had stopped.   
“No!” She pushed her hair out of her face, still catching her breath. She had a nice face.   
“Let me buy you a drink, make you feel better?” he offered.   
“Screw you,” she sneered.  
Instantly turned off by her demeanour, he shrugged and returned to his easy position against the pub’s brick wall. "Have a nice night, then."  
She glared at him for a moment, opened her mouth only to close it again, then stormed into the pub. She was an interesting woman. Crazy but, the interesting ones always were.    
The door slammed open, the bang echoed through the alley. A sharp, slightly crooked finger thrusted into his face accompanied by fiery eyes. He took one last drag on his cigarette before flicking it away.   
“You know,” she started, “sometimes a girl will ask you for a drag without wanting to get in your pants. Sometimes a girl will accept a drink from you -”   
“Without wanting to get in my knickers, got it. You could say the same for a bloke. Sometimes, all a bloke wants to do is talk,” he said. “Unless there’s a double standard I don’t know about.”   
“Fuck you!” she spat.   
“I don’t fuck crazy,” he shrugged and walked away.   
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she called after him.   
“Sirius Black, love,” he straddled his motorbike and kicked it to life. It gave a loud roar as it rumbled beneath him. He loved the surge of power it emitted. “An exhibitionist!” He grinned at her before speeding away. 


	2. The One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a poem called 'The One' written by Lang Leav

Lily had flaming auburn hair, ivory skin, and emerald green eyes. She made Head Girl in her seventh year. She had once been best friends with Severus Snape. She’s bright, vivacious, charming, and could be rather cheeky. She was a Mudblood.  
These facts were common knowledge in the British Wizarding community. However, certain things were private, things that only James knew. He knew there were exactly 42 freckles scattered across her body. The scar above her right eyebrow was from the time she nearly fell out of a tree when she was nine. She hated precision and ‘perfected techniques’ because she didn’t think there really was a solution to every problem. She liked staying up late and reading books. She was quick to laugh. It was hard to make her cry, and he hated that he’s managed to do that. The sound of rain hitting her window made her feel less alone.  
He was irrevocably and incandescently in love with her. It made him sick to his stomach sometimes and his heart physically ache but it was what it was. He wasn’t nervous and if the years had told him anything that’s when he should be nervous.  
So, yeah, he was nervous. Lily always said he was too cocky. That his large head caused all his problems. She was right.  
Everything was in place.  
He shouldn’t be nervous.  
This would be fine.  
She loved him.  
A time capsule. He was cheesy. Overrated and pathetically cheesy. It wasn’t too late even though she was at the door he could still change his plans. She never had to know about what hid in the back garden. He could say he forgot to buy food so there was no dinner prepared; that he was too busy with his friends to buy flowers or set up candles or the music, the wine. Merlin, he was a sap.  
She kissed him like she meant it. He was less nervous and then more when he had to look at her. He knew he couldn’t lie to her.  
“Dinner’s out back.” She’d have to deal with sappy. She’d like it, wouldn’t she?  
“Outside? I knew you were a risk taker but, James….” She smirked and moved past him. It had been raining all day, but she had to have known he would take the proper precautions. It was too late by the time he realised she was joking. He was mugging it up already.  
There are no words to describe the way her face brightened when she saw what he had done. She was glowing in every sense of the word. He didn’t think people could glow but of course Lily could.  
“I love this song,” she smiled.  
“It was playing on our first date. Our first official date,” he shrugged, hoping he seemed nonchalant; hoping that the battle of the butterflies raging in his stomach wasn’t showing.  
She smiled a knowing smile. She couldn’t know what he was planning.  
“Did you make dinner yourself?” she asked, intrigued. She took the covers off the plates and sniffed.  
“No,” he said, pulling her chair out for her. “I picked it up from that pub we went to. That one night when I took you home -”  
“After I got lost, yeah, I remember,” she said. “Is there a reason for the nostalgia?”  
James merely smiled and took his seat.  
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “What’s the next thing then?”  
“Desert,” he answered with a note of finality.

 

He started with their train tickets because that’s where they met. Then, the first note they exchanged, a year later.  
Hey, Lily.  
Bugger off!  
Rude! I was only going to ask if you finished the Potions assignment.  
Bugger! Off!  
“You kept this!” she laughed, amused and a little embarrassed as he himself was. He laughed nervously and pulled out half a clipboard from third year.    
“You broke this over my head in third year during Herbology,” he told her.  
“Only because you pulled my hair,” she defended, still smiling.  
“I was trying to get your attention,” he said, innocently.  
“Well, it worked,” she smirked.  
“This is from fourth year,” he breathed, hoping that she remembered the miniscule detail. Flower petals from the flower she wore in her hair at the alum ball. They shared a dance. She lost a bet, and they had to dance in a dark corner so no one could see but it was still a dance and it meant something to him.  
She smiled softly as she felt the still soft texture of the old petals. “James.”  
“Fifth year,” he announced, briskly. Fifth year was not a good year for them. They still needed to acknowledge it; they had come a long way since then, so he pulled out a beaten up snitch and ruffled his hair for old time’s sake.  
She laughed, a little reluctantly, and shook her head. “You’re an idiot.”  
“Thank you,” he grinned. This was the good part. The end of sixth year he had made a drastic mistake between the Beatles and beetles. He gave her the pamphlet to the stupid beetle exhibition: Their unofficial first date.  She graciously tried not to laugh.  
“Remember when they played ‘All My Loving?’” she asked.  
“You’re hilarious,” he grinned. Their first official date was at a pub to see a real concert. He had a hard time tracking down the band again as they were local artist but he was able to get a signed T-shirt.  
“James!” she gasped.  
“That was the band we went to see -”  
“On our first date. I remember, I asked you -”  
“Because you were impressed with my telephone skills?” he asked.  
“Thoroughly,” she said.  
“This one’s a little weird. Okay, more than a little weird but,” he handed her a leaf. “It’s from the tree we had our first kiss under.”  
“James, that’s not weird!” She bit her lips and squinted at him. “I can’t tell if you’ve done something horrible or are about to do something mental.”  
“Knowing me it’s probably both,” he smirked. She rolled her eyes.  
He handed her a picture. They were at a party, doing things they shouldn’t have been doing but enjoying every minute. She looked at him questioningly.  
“This was the night I realised that I was in love with you. I took you home, held your hair back when you were throwing up, and you asked me to stay over,” he told her. “I don’t know what it was, it was just… clarity.”  
Her eyes watered subtly.  
“This is from our first night together,” he placed her hair pin on the table. She had a million like it and he had no use for it but he couldn’t bear to get rid of it.  
“James,” she whispered.  
“And this,” he continued, unable to stop now he had started, “is from the day you told me you loved me. We were on a mission and probably going to die but it wasn’t the last time you said it so I figured you were telling the truth.” He handed her his old coat that was slashed up beyond repair. He had only bought it two days prior; it was his first time wearing it so it would always be the coat he almost died in and the coat Lily said she loved him in.  
She bit hard into her bottom lip, turning the skin white from the pressure. She was getting emotional.  
“I could go on but let’s cut to the chase, yeah?” He handed her a letter. He went over the words he had carefully written in his head as he watched her eyes scan the page.  
**I know I’m not the best boyfriend in the world. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. I will never be the one you’re comfortable bringing home to your parents or around your sister’s house. I’m going to make you want to tear your own eyes out often. (Ask Remus.)**  
 **I don’t want you to love me because I’m good for you, because I say and do all the right things. Because I’m everything you’ve ever wanted, everything your family’s ever wanted for you.**  
 **I want to be the one you didn’t see coming. The one who gets under your skin. Who makes you question everything you ever thought you knew about love. The one who you are so infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to it makes you question your sanity. I want to make you feel reckless and out of control and alive. I want to be the reason why you can’t sleep. Because that is what you’ve done to me.**  
 **You’ve changed my world. You’ve changed the way I look at the stars. The way I look at the clouds and the rain and simple stones on the beach. I have to watch every sunrise and every sunset because it makes me think of you. I have to touch every goddamn book in a bookstore because I know that at some point you’ve probably picked it up.**  
Is it reckless and stupid? Maybe. Is it impulsive? Definitely not.  
“James what are you - what are you doing?” she asked, gripping the letter with both hands.  
He took a deep breath and got down on one knee. “Marry me?”


End file.
